Russia

My father, Naum Katsenelson, painted this watercolor, “Dolls Become Humans,” two years after we came to the United States in 1993. This is the only “thematic” picture my father ever painted. If you look at the picture carefully you’ll see the silhouette of Lenin in the clouds (representing the past). On the far left there…

It is hard for me to see a full-blown war between Russia and Ukraine. There are so few cultural differences between these two countries. Ukraine has its own language, but almost everyone (outside of small villages) speaks flawless Russian. If there is a war between these two countries, it will be a civil war. Ukraine…

I gave a presentation on China/Japan at the “Rethinking Seminar” at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. My presentation was videotaped; video (both streaming and download), audio, and even cliff notes may be found here (by the way, make sure to take a look at other presentations on their website). Also, I updated my slides…

I’ll cover a lot of random subjects, but let me start with an invitation. I was invited to give a talk about China and Japan at my alma mater, the University of Colorado at Denver. Here is the invite: We are pleased to invite you to an upcoming International Executive Roundtable on Thursday, April 15,…

I’ve received so many emails about the WSJ front page article in which the Russian expert, a professor and ex-KGB agent predicts that the US will falter and be split up into five zones (see map below, here is a link to the original article and here is a link to his video interview) and…

Bad decisions when times were fat spell a rough road ahead for those who hold their savings in Russian currency. It is amazing how things change in a few months. In September, Russia was on top of the world, the returning global power. Today, it is slipping into obscurity. If it did not have nuclear…

If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that people don’t learn. Recently, I talked to my cousin who is an executive with a Russian airline company. In our discussion he mentioned that his company just received semi-unsecured loans (all planes are leased so they are not used as a collateral) from western banks at 10%…

Royal Dutch Shell‘s $7.5 billion sale to Gazprom may have been coerced by the Russian government. Vitaliy Katsenelson looks at the Sakhalin-2 sale and examines the long-term implications if Russia disregards Western investment. [I had a different title in mind for that article Russia: Screw the West, We Don’t Need Them Anymore, but my editor…

The Russian government’s threat to suspend licenses for two giga-billion projects by TNK-BP, in part owned by BP (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-A), is not uncharacteristic of Russia and its very short term thinking. The Russian government argues that it is based on environmental concerns. Nothing, I repeat nothing, in Russia gets done based on environmental concerns. The government simply wants to muscle in on a larger stake in the projects.